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Tag Archives: Peter Smith

Serious questions demand serious answers. To seriously answer the question of whether Bernie Sanders could win the November 2016 election, Sanders supporters must put aside our preferences and partisanship to soberly appraise the likely terrain of the 2016 Electoral College and how Sanders would fit into that context as the Democratic nominee.

Safe and Swing States and Sanders

In the past 6 consecutive presidential races, the Democratic nominee has won 18 states and the District of Colombia for a total of 242 votes in the Electoral College while the Republican nominee has won 13 states for a total of 102 electoral votes. States that vote reliably Democratic (blue states) or Republican (red states) are what’s known in American electoral jargon as “safe states” while the states that could vote in either direction are known as “swing states.” Continue reading →

Senator Bernie Sanders has been mulling over a presidential run for the past few months and is set to make an announcement this week or next about his potential candidacy. Bernie, a self-proclaimed and vocal socialist, is a talented campaigner, a remarkably successful politician and broadly popular across the ideological spectrum in his home state. Should he decide to run, socialists need to play an active role in building his campaign, but we also need to think carefully about why a Bernie candidacy is important and how socialists should best support and shape such a campaign. For starters, I don’t think socialists should work for Bernie in the hopes of “reclaiming” the Democratic Party (when was it ours to begin with?). Further, Bernie’s presidential run shouldn’t be seen as a means to pull Clinton to the left, a failing strategy for sure. Continue reading →